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To: Tony Viola who wrote (91359)	10/30/1999 1:36:00 AM
From: Process Boy	Respond to of 186894

Tony and Thread - Cnet on Intel vs. VIA lawsuit; says it's now expanded to some VIA customers yahoo.cnet.com Intel expands Via lawsuit, nabbing its customers By Michael Kanellos Staff Writer, CNET News.com October 29, 1999, 8:00 p.m. PT Intel has expanded its legal war against Via Technologies by filing a bevy of lawsuits against the Taiwanese chipset maker as well as companies that have adopted the Via's products. Three different sets of lawsuits have been filed against Via, its partners, and customers in San Jose, the United Kingdom, and Singapore. Although the specific claims and defendants vary from suit to suit, all of the actions share a similar theme. All relate back to a contested licensing agreement between the two companies. Intel claims that Via violated the agreement. Via contends Intel merely wants to stem the growing popularity of Via's chipsets for Celeron and Pentium III computers. A companion to the main processor, a chipset essentially functions as the communications hub for the internal components of a computer Interestingly, the new lawsuits do not target Via's big customers, which include IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Micron Electronics. Instead, Intel is suing First International Computer (FIC), which is part of the same conglomerate as Via, and Everex, a once-major computer brand that has seen its market share plummet. The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, for instance, alleges that specific Everex computers and specific FIC "motherboards," or main circuit boards, violate a number of Intel patents, according to court papers. The computers and motherboards in question depend upon the Via chipsets, according to sources and independent research. The U.K. and Singapore actions are more direct. The motherboard makers violated Intel rights by trying to "dispose of" or sell the disputed Via chipsets. Via is named in the U.K. and Singapore actions, but not in the latest U.S. lawsuit. Intel filed a suit against the company in June. Intel is filing the suits to protect its intellectual property, according to spokesman Chuck Mulloy. "Via does not have a license to the 'P6' bus," he said, referring to the data pathway that connects Intel processors and peripheral components, such as chipsets or memory. Mulloy declined to comment on any connection between the Everex suit and the Via suit, and declined to comment on whether Intel is looking to see whether IBM or HP has committed similar violations. Typically, larger companies have cross-licensing agreements which can insulate them. The Via-Intel saga began late last year, when the former signed an agreement to license the P6 bus from Intel. Via sought the license to build chipsets for computers using Celeron, Pentium II, and III processors. Disputes quickly arose between the two companies and Intel filed suit against Via in June. The source of the conflict stems from Via's promotion of a 133-MHz system bus chipset, sources have said. Until recently, all Intel chipsets came with a slower, 100-MHz bus. In early spring, Via began to tell customers that it was planning to release a chipset with a 133-MHz bus months before Intel. This early release was apparently a violation of the licensing agreement. Rather than back down, Via has released its chipset. Although Via mostly worked with second- or third-tier customers, it recently saw its business rachet up when Intel announced that it was delaying its 820chipset, which would have better competed against Via's offerings. After the 820 got delayed, Micron, IBM and HP all announced that they had become Via customers.

To: Tony Viola who wrote (91359)	10/30/1999 1:55:00 AM
From: Paul Engel	Respond to of 186894

Tony - Re: " This makes it sound like it's a whole new motherboard, rather than the three RIMM slot one with the third one capped or trace-cut eliminated. If so, that was fast turnaround time on the new mobo" To el.eiminate the third RIMM slot & traces & fabricate an entirely new MotherBoard - for SAMPLES - could possibly be done in a matter of DAYS - if enough manpower and MONEY were "properly applied". The real work would have been to run the snot out of the test boards under heavy memory I/O test operations - with dedicated routines - and watch for the "soft errors" that occurred with the 3-RIMM boards. I'm sure a wide variation in actual RIMM modules - different vendors, different speeds, mixed vendor RIMM modules, different voltages, timings, etc - would have had to be verified - and I'll bet this is still going on. If the article was true, the results to date must look encouraging. Now - even if the launch does come at COMDEX, getting the VOLUMES UP on these boards - and the RIMM modules - will be a whole different matter. As the article said, shipments of 820 MotherBoards in this year will be quite small - but hopefully rapidly ramping ! Paul

To: Tony Viola who wrote (91359)	10/30/1999 4:57:00 AM
From: John F. Dowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

"This makes it sound like it's a whole new motherboard, rather than the three RIMM slot one with the third one capped or trace-cut eliminated. If so, that was fast turnaround time on the new mobo. Tony " This looks like a mechanical change to me Tony eh? JFD

To: Tony Viola who wrote (91359)	10/30/1999 1:59:00 PM
From: greenspirit	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 186894

Tony, a question to Intel shareholders. What will motivate the millions of people out there to upgrade their P-200 computers to the latest chips from Intel? It occurs to me that when looking at this issue, we should examine the constraints toward consumer motivation. Price and application seem to be the major two of course. However, I would suggest another important characteristic is "ease of transition". We all have probably gone through the pain of replacing our hardrives and reloading the numerous programs we have accumulated over the years. many tech-savy investors on SI can probably manipulate the various programs which allow easy transferring of data. I would suggest the average consumer who owns a P-200, would not. So what am I getting at? Intel should be working hard on encouraging the industry to standardized plug ins which allow this transition to be as effortless as possible. Although the industry has come far in the past 5 years stardardizing the ports. Much more needs to be done IMO. Why not a simple hardrive plug in positioned at the front of the computer to transfer the entire old hardrive into your new one? The OS could include the necessary software and automatically partition it for you. Removing motivational bottlenecks to consumer upgrades should be a real focus of Intel. Just some musings on this quiet Saturday.... Best, Michael